Three-way World Bank race seen as deadline looms

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States faces an unprecedented challenge to its grip on the World Bank presidency, with emerging economies poised to nominate at least one candidate on Friday to set up the first contested bid for the top job at the global development lender. Less than a day before the deadline to nominate, Washington has yet to announce its candidate. South Africa is set to confirm the candidacy of Nigerian Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, a respected economist, diplomat and former World Bank managing director. ...

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States faces an unprecedented challenge to its grip on the World Bank presidency, with emerging economies poised to nominate at least one candidate on Friday to set up the first contested bid for the top job at the global development lender.

The United States faces an unprecedented challenge to its grip on the World Bank presidency, with emerging economies poised to nominate at least one candidate on Friday to set up the first contested bid ...

By Simon Johnson, co-author of White House Burning
A decision on choosing the next president of the World Bank is expected this week – perhaps as early as Monday. The Obama administration nominated Jim Yong Kim, president of Dartmouth College and a noted public health expert. The reaction to this nomination from development economists and people experienced in the business of lending to poor countries has been overwhelmingly negative.

Nigeria's finance minister Friday joined the race for the top World Bank job, backed by Africa's leading economies in a push for greater influence at global financial bodies dominated by rich nations.Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, flanked by counterparts from South Africa and Angola, unveiled her candidacy at a press conference in Pretoria, putting the weight of Africa's biggest economy and its two biggest oil producers behind her bid.

The World Bank needs a shake-up to end the inertia that has built up over six decades, Nigeria's Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, hoping to become the development lender's next president, said Monday.Okonjo-Iweala, who spent more than two decades at the Bank before becoming Nigeria's finance minister, pledged a sweeping reassessment of the way it does business if she is chosen over two rivals for the job."There are things that really frustrate me" at the Bank, she said in a talk at the Center for Global Development in Washington.

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the Nigerian finance minister who wants to run the World Bank, has warned that emerging economies will lose interest in multi-lateral institutions if they are not given more of a voice at the top of them.

Nigeria's Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala who is angling for the World Bank's top job, is a respected economist who has spent most of the last 30 years at the bank.Before she became finance minister in August, the 57-year-old Harvard-educated economist was the World Bank's managing director, the second most powerful position at the global financial lender.

Colombia's Jose Antonio Ocampo withdrew from the World Bank presidential race on Friday to back Nigerian Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the sole candidate from a developing nation bidding to wrest control of the global institution from the US.

Jose Antonio Ocampo, a former Colombian Minister of Finance, has announced he is withdrawing his bid to become president of the World Bank. He says he will support Nigerian Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala (EN'-goh-zee oh-CON'-joh ee-WAH'-la)